The Financialization of Self: Financial Logics and Careers in the Hedge Fund Industry

• In Event: 560 - Regular Session. Race and Gender in the Professions

Abstract

Previous research on financialization examines how finance has affected other parts of society: governments, non-financial corporations, and even households. Yet little research has examined how the rise of finance affects the way people make sense of themselves and their careers. In this paper, I examine the cultural logics used by workers in the hedge fund industry as they explain how to succeed in a highly competitive and unstable industry. Drawing from fifteen in-depth interviews and fieldnotes from four industry conferences, I investigate how financial terms and logics imbue the language they use to describe the setbacks and advances they have made in their careers. Financial logics pervade the way workers in finance think about their careers and produce a financial concept of self: a distinct understanding of oneself as an ongoing investment that needs resources, development, and constant management. Findings included in the paper uncover three distinct themes that best characterize the financialization of self: leveraging, sponsoring, and self-promoting. These financial logics, however, are predominantly employed by women and are, perhaps, the product of a broader movement of neoliberal feminism, in which women are told to strategize and plan their careers by adapting business and financial logics.

Author

• Megan Tobias Neely, University of Texas-Austin